Ready! Set! Whoa...

We have dug the footing and laid the iron bars. We are ready to pour the cement and start raising the walls. Funds, drawings, materials, and everything we need is ready. Except one thing. One thing that money won’t buy and I can’t force. Faith. This one key element has brought the construction to a grinding halt. I told the community from day one the school wouldn’t be built by a construction crew from outside, or anyone paid by Why The Woods because that would undermine the whole project and in effect create the very problem I am combating: dependency. I told them they would be the ones to build their own school. I have recently learned that what they thought I meant by “build your own school” was that they would just do what the other NGO’s require of the Africans: collect natural materials and help mix the cement “so they feel like they have ownership.” They were quite shocked when they finished gathering all the sand and stones and I explained that now they were actually going to build the school. The whole school. They say it can’t be them because they are simple, uneducated farmers and this project needs skilled, paid workers. To which I remind them that A)they don’t know what this type of construction needs because they’ve never built like this, B)the Israelites that built the wall around Jerusalem were also simple farmers, not professional builders, C)GOD is Greater than our inabilities.

As I have said many times, the project is the people. If it were about the school building it would obviously make sense to bring in a crew or a few builders to do the hard stuff. But my whole point with this project is to push the Wadupe mindset past the idea that they can’t do great things for themselves; to breed Hope when they see what they can do through the strength of GOD; and to create a community of dreamers, thinkers, and doers, rather than a village of beggars. We have tried to preach this idea to them. I have given so many of what I call “Obama speeches”(encouraging, fluffy, optimistic, etc) I can’t count them anymore. We have learned that no matter how many speeches we give, how many times we explain it to them, or how many comparisons we make with the Bible, they just don’t believe they can do it. For a while we were stumped. Frustrated. What do we do now? We never thought they wouldn’t want to build the school. I imagined a crowd of eager volunteers every day. I thought the hard part in all this would be getting the funds. But, to keep in line with the Why The Woods imagery, a tree starts with a seed, not logs and limbs and leaves. This seed, this faith in GOD, we thought was already here, we now realize dried up a long time ago. There is a spiritual darkness in this place, apathy towards GOD, and a strong faith in money and appearance. They are afraid of failure. They are paralyzed. They only see the wind and the waves (Matt 14). So although the surface needs are met by providing materials and instruction, there is a deeper spiritual need we must address. We cannot ignore it for the sake of producing a building. They will remain empty if we do.

Last Friday a group of 13 people from YWAM (Youth With A Mission) came to stay with us in Wadupe. For the next five weeks Why The Woods is playing host and informant as this group focuses on bringing the Spirit of GOD back to Wadupe.
Derrick and I are praying and fasting for this village. We are helping YWAM conduct outreach activities and seminars for the community. We pray they will believe again in the one true GOD. We pray they will see that through Him they “can do all things.” We pray that they will believe in this project and see how it will change their future for the better. In just a few days of YWAM being there we have already seen a renewed interest in building the school. There are a few who believe it can be done. So they are coming. I say let the few who believe in His strength build the school. Let those who don’t be ashamed when they see what GOD did here. We hope to restart the construction later this week or early next week. Please pray for those that believe and work, that they will be an example to those who don’t.